


The Path

by caras_galadhon (Galadriel)



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Old Age, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-03
Updated: 2007-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel/pseuds/caras_galadhon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elessar revisits an old path in search of the man he left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Path

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Empy (Empyreus)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empyreus/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [路](https://archiveofourown.org/works/601936) by [styx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/styx/pseuds/styx)



> For Halloween, I wrote ficlets for people who "knocked" on my virtual!door. (Final total: 12.) [](http://empy.livejournal.com/profile)[**empy**](http://empy.livejournal.com/), my eight visitor, arrived "dressed as a dead Elf warrior...in very fetching shades of marshwater green and pallor mortis," and proceeded to wring out her hair and pour water out of her gauntlets and boots on my doorstep. Originally posted [in the thread available here](http://caras-galadhon.livejournal.com/344496.html?thread=2650544#t2650544), this is a slightly tweaked version.

_He had come to this place a mere Ranger, and left a King._

It had been more years than he wished to count since he had walked this path, yet Elessar was drawn back as inexorably as a moth to a flickering flame. He'd resisted long enough, held off the inevitable until his bones creaked with age, his once-smooth brow now creased with care, but the time had come to face his fear.

Leaving his horse near the mouth of the cave -- for even in an Age where wonder had been replaced by practicality, the beasts of the field would not venture in hollows where echoes of Ages gone by still gathered -- he wended his slow way to the largest chamber, stone arch and vaulted ceiling still testament to the greatness long ago captured here.

The floor had all but fallen away, a treacherous ledge his only option, and as he stood on the edge, looking into the abyss beyond, he strained his ears, waiting.

Nary a wisp of breath save his own disturbed the vast emptiness of space. Only ghosts of ghosts remained, and they could not speak to him.

Aragorn turned away -- for it was Aragorn, not Elessar, who stood in the shadow of centuries -- finally certain that those who had gone before, enemies, allies, friends and loved ones all, were beyond even his reach.

There were equal handfuls of comfort and despair in this knowledge; despair at knowing that if the Dead did not linger here, then the warrior that he had mourned for faithfully would never be within his grasp in this life, and comfort in knowing that the twilight of that life was not long away.

And now, letting his own shadow stretch out before him, he set his feet on the old path, King once more a Ranger, in search of the faintest trace that would lead him through the wilds to find that warrior long ago lost to his sight.


End file.
